Cirrus@Austlit

'In Sheet Music, John Upton's second collection of poetry, his meditations on people and places are at the same time moving and personal, and sweepingly international. These poems travel: they make pit-stops in both strange and familiar territory, they linger at destinations. They take you on a wild ride through a range of deftly-handled poetic forms, and always they touch down on the human heart.

Upton has a gift for dark humour, understated irony and incisive imagery, and his vision ranges from the impact of broken relationships and our connection with other sentient creatures, to the futility of war and empty patriotism. Through often unexpected analogies and startling imagery, his poems probe the nature and progress of grief and illness, and the ways the body, and the body politic, can betray the self. At times colloquial and irreverent, or formal and imagistic, they affirm the radiance that can be found all around and within us, despite the provisionality and chaos of existence.' (Publication summary) 

'Ron Mulock was a Labor Member of the NSW Parliament from 1971 to 1988. He is the only Minister since Federation to have consecutively held the major portfolios of Education, Health and Transport. Mulock served as Deputy Premier under Neville Wran and Barrie Unsworth from 1984 to 1988. From an insider’s perspective, he gives previously unrevealed insights into Neville Wran and his Government. Mulock’s memoirs expose the underbelly of ALP politics in a rare way.

'Another theme of this book is Mulock’s indefatigable campaign for recognition and resources for booming but neglected western Sydney. His story is also that of a decent man in politics. It is a human story of a family coping with the demands of political life. Mulock’s reminiscences are candid, insightful and readable.' (Publication summary)

'Tender poems on the death of his wife, witty Philip Larkin apercus, meditations on the spiritual need of Australians for Europe, hard-eyed satire as a political fixer dismisses as out-of-date the instruments of torture in the Tower of London: John Upton’s range is broad and his poetic skills accomplished. There’s also wit, along with rollicking humour and love of the absurd, with jealous Othello transposed into Sydney’s posh Eastern Suburbs, and a defrocked priest with a gambling habit sacked and clerking at the TAB.' (Publication summary)